Exhibition sketches Auschwitz

There are countless exhibitions, books and films about Auschwitz, but Cologne Museum's take on it in a new exhibition offers visitors something very different. "Topography and everyday life in Auschwitz-Birkenau" (Todesfabrik Ausschwitz - Topographie und Alltag in German) shows sketches, almost turning it into an architectural wonder.

The Todesfabrik (Death Factory) exhibition, which opened close to the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the camp in January, replicates the architectural plans of 50 buildings that once stood in Auschwitz. It is an attempt by the creators to reproduce the largest "death factory" built by the Nazis. The exhibition also shows drawings by former inmates of the camp where more than one million people were killed.

"These drawings are true remains from the concentration camp," says Jürgen Müller, project manager of the exhibition. "When you look at a sketch alone you can't possibly realize what happened, this is why we connect it to a picture, a drawing from someone that was an inmate in the camp, so that the sketches can come to life."

Biographies of the owners are attached to the sketches. In addition, there is historical information about Auschwitz . The result helps to create a more complete story.

"Next to the replicated plan of the kitchen for example, there's a drawing of several inmates fighting over pieces of food leftovers. No plan can show that," Müller notes.

Peter Siebers, a Cologne-based draftsman, worked with Israeli historian Gideon Greif on the exhibition. Siebers replicated the architectural plans, and Greif collected the drawings and the information.

"This is a different exhibition about Auschwitz," Greif told Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

"Its key point is the huge gap between normal and abnormal. The buildings in the camp are ordinary buildings, but their content was unusual and not normal at all," he added.

The two traveled to Poland, Germany and Israel to complete the study and restore the camp's structures.

"There is a beautiful message in the fact that German architect is collaborating with Israeli historian on a subject like Auschwitz," Greif says.

Auschwitz at its peak included 45 camps stretched over 40 square kilometers. Most of them exist today only in history books, and that's why the exhibit is important, according to Müller. The 50 buildings replicated in the exhibition were completely destroyed during World War II.

"Auschwitz is a synonym for the entire holocaust," says Müller. "Even if you know very little about it, you still know the name 'Auschwitz'. But unfortunately many people today don't know where it is, what it is or what happened there."

For Müller, it is crucial to show that these unimaginable events took place in normal buildings and structures.

"We show visitors that the same thoughts that are invested in architecture today were happening then too - everything needed to be money and time saving," he says. "And these sights are not taken from some sort of an imaginary different world."